How to Be Brave(8)

Visitation: Thursday 4 P.M. to 9 P.M.

at Smith-Corcoran Funeral Home,

6150 N. Cicero Ave.,

Chicago.


This is what it doesn’t say:

Long before it all fell apart,

on the very last day of summer, the winds hadn’t yet turned but the leaves were dropping and the sun was low in the sky.

I had just turned twelve.

She called in to work and pulled me out of school, and we drove up north

to the nice part of town where the beaches are clean and quiet and mostly empty.

We floated in the cold waters of Lake Michigan, pretended we were rich, carefree.


She didn’t care what other people thought, how heavy she was, how she looked in her bathing suit, if she laughed too loudly.


I pretended not to care, too.


She ran to the shallow edge of the beach and hoisted herself through the air,

a full cartwheel.


She did a full cartwheel at size 24.


She laughed, and I laughed,

and then I applauded.

She was radiant that day.





3

Dad slides my history homework over and places a giant mound of spaghetti and meat sauce in front of me. “There,” he says. “Eat.”

It’s just about the only way he knows how to communicate with me, through food. He kisses the top of my head and walks back to the front to count the register. It’s an hour before closing. The restaurant is empty. It’s slow tonight. A few regulars pick at their plates, but no one else is coming in.

Then again, it’s always slow these days. I guess there was a time, back when I was really little, business was good and my parents actually made a bit of a profit. I vaguely remember taking a few family vacations, down to Florida, out to L.A. for my mom’s work, and one big trip when I was six all the way back to Greece, to my father’s village. I barely remember it, but from the photos it looks like we were all really happy. My dad was proud to return, a successful American who had enough money to rent a real German Audi and to fold rolls of hundred-dollar bills and sneak them into the pockets of his sister and her children. It didn’t last long, though. Times changed, and my dad didn’t keep up. The downtown crowd stopped wanting Caesar salads and Reuben sandwiches. Suddenly they liked arugula and grass-fed-beef burgers grown in Montana and flown in on a solar-powered jet or some stupid thing. My mom kept urging my dad to update the menu, to paint the place in something other than burgundy, to give it a new look. “Brighten up the place. Put in wood tables. Make it so that people want to come in.”

“Good food,” my dad would counter. “That is all that should matter.”

And for a few customers, he was right. He continues to do a decent lunch since he does have a prime location—near State and Kinzie—and it’s still enough to make ends meet. But dinnertime is always empty. Prospective customers head down the street to the newer cafés and bars, all with hip, idiotic names like the Hog Trough (slow-smoked ribs) and Green Pastures (build your own salad). I spent all summer working the register so my dad could save a few bucks and I’d have something to do. And I’ve promised to be here on Saturdays, A) to help my dad, and B) to earn some extra cash. It’s an easy job since it rarely gets busy. I mostly just sit at the register and read.

Now that school’s started, I still come here after school instead of home. It’s partly to keep him company and mostly to avoid being in an empty apartment staring at my mom’s paintings that fill up the place. Tonight, I also need to talk to him about getting some extra money for cheerleading. If I make it—I mean when I make it (Think Positive!)—I’ll need some cash for uniforms and trips. The packet said they’ll provide funding to those in need, but I’ll still need to pay for part of it.

I take out my homework and the cheers that I have to practice for next week while I eat. I wind a few strands of spaghetti around a fork and slurp it up. It’s so good, better than most places. I can taste my dad’s secret ingredient: cinnamon. He cooks all the food himself. He opens early at six A.M, closes at seven P.M., and manages and cooks all day long. My mom used to call him a workhorse. I said he was a control freak.

“Nancy,” my dad calls out to the only other person working tonight, “why don’t you just go home now? Georgia and I, we can take care of somebody if they come in.” Nancy is his most dedicated server, who’s been working for him for more than twenty years. She and my mom were about the same age, and they always got along well. Nancy sat with my mom at the hospital at the end.

Nancy unties her apron, packs up her stuff, and starts to head out. “Thanks, boss,” she says to my dad. Then she turns to me. “You take good care of him, okay?”

I nod and turn my attention back to my spaghetti and homework. Revolutionary War. Second Continental Congress. Thomas Paine. Declaration of Independence. Then I pull out the packet of cheers and practice under my breath. Memorize, memorize, memorize.

My dad stops his counting and looks at me. “Tell me some news. Tell me what you learned today.”

This is something my dad has said nearly every day since I was in kindergarten. It might partly be a way for him to try to connect with me, but I think it’s also a way for him to learn, since he stopped going to school in the eighth grade. He’s actually really smart, but he never had a chance to prove it.